Four Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) researchers won six medals including two gold awards during the Invention and New Product Exposition (INPEX) held at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA recently.
Prof. Dr. Fatimah Md. Yusoff and Prof. Dato’ Dr. Mohamed Shariff Mohamed Din from the Bioscience Institute UPM won gold under the Agriculture Category with their project titled Periphyton - Bacterial Complex: A Novel System for Improving Water Quality and Shrimp Survival without Water Exchange. They both also won silver under the Science Category for the same project.
Dr. Fatimah said the outcome of her research on periphyton will allow water quality to be retained by absorbing toxic wastes mixture such as ammonia and nitrite, supplying high quality live feed, decreasing cannibalism and lessening pathogenic vibrios. “By doing so, we don’t need to exchange the entire water during the cultivation of shrimps,” she added.
Concurrently, Dr. Osumanu Haruna Ahmed from the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences of the UPM Bintulu Campus won gold under the Specialized Technology Category and bronze under the Chemistry Category for the project titled Simple and Rapid Method for Purifying Humic Acids Isolated from Humified Substances.
For those who are interested, Dr. Osumanu said his research provides a significant profit to the industrial field as it allows the production of organic fertilizers such as ammonium and potassium humates at a much lowered cost.
Assc. Prof. Mohd. Basyaruddin Abdul Rahman, another UPM researcher from the Faculty of Science received two silvers from his project MBiocoatings™: Nanoformulation Surface Coating under the Environmental Category.
Assc. Prof. Dr. Ishak Aris from the Institute Teknologi Maju (ITMA) correspondingly won a bronze merit medal with his project on Electronic Control Unit (ECU) for Compressed Natural Gas Direct Injection (CNGDI) Vehicle under the Alternative Energy, Automative, Environmental, Science, and Transportation & Vehicles Category.
Malaysia’s Delegation Chief, Assc. Prof. Dr. Ratnasamy Muniandy from the Faculty of Engineering UPM said UPM won six medals out of five participations.
“Malaysia was honored for contributing the largest fraction of participation in this year’s INPEX with entrants from 12 of Malaysia’s public and private institutions of higher education where 51 entries and 81 products were contested,” he said.
Dr. Ratnasamy also added that the INPEX 2008 held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh from June 11 until June 14 was a prestigious contest which outlined exacting rules for potential winners.
http://www.upm.edu.my/?kat=1&aktvt=berita&kod=200807091911546541721698138
